As I almost never comment upon current events, these blog entries have a timeless triviality. Sample the various years and see what interests you.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Ashley Sterne Boiling an Egg

From the Huon Times (Franklin,
Tasmania)November 5, 1920

"Mrs. Danks," I said to
my house keeper one morning, "the eggs are hard boiled again. Look at
them. Smack 'em on the head with the spoon. Why, they're as hard as — Chinese."

"Well, sir," said Mrs.
Danks, "Ican't understand how that
can be.I did 'em to 'Hark the Herald
Angels Sing,' and that always boils 'em light. The herald angels have never let
me down before, sir."

"Quite sure you didn't go
through 'Paradise Lost' or 'The Swiss Family Robinson' by mistake?" I
asked.'There must be something wrong
with the hen— they've been eating cement, perhaps., Do you know the name and
address of the depraved bird?"

"The eggs came as usual from
my sister, sir," said 'Mrs. Danks, "and I can guarantee there's
nothing wrong with her hens. They're— they're — "

"Sans peur et sans reproche,
of course?"

"No, sir; some of them's
Plymouth Rocks and some Dorkings. This egg would be a Plymouth Rock,'' she remarked,
pointing to the more stubborn of the two.

"Yes," I agreed. "A
bit of the original old Plymouth Rock that the Pilgrim Fathers stood on."

"The next morning when she
brought in the eggs she was beaming all over her face.

"I think you'll find 'em all
right to day," she observed. " boiled 'em separate — the brown one to
'The Voice that Breathed O'er Eden' and the white one to '0 Happy Band of Pilgrims'."

"We'll soon see," I
cried, tapping them lightly with the spoon. Nothing happened, so I tapped them
harder and bent the spoon. I was on the point of fetching the coke-hammer when
Mrs. Danks intervened and managed to cut off their heads with the carving
knife.

"They are a bit hard,"
she remarked, after examining them closely. "I can't understand it."

"Very good," I observed.
"This matter requires investigation.I. shall engage a detective. I shall place the eggs in the hands of my
solicitor. Meanwhile, will you make me a lobster mayonnaise for lunch?"

Later in. the morning,, when Mrs.
Danks was out lobstering, I went into the larder, took the only egg I could
find, and determined to boil it myself. I wasn't going to sing the 'Hallelujah
Chorus' to it; I was going to give it three and a half minutes pure Greenwich
time.

I placed the egg in the saucepan
and boiled. it three and a half minutes to the tick. I cracked the shell very
cautiously and exposed a surface as hard as a billiard-ball. Then I had a
bright idea. There must be something the matter with the water. Possibly it was
very rich water and boiled at a much higher temperature than ordinary water.

I fetched the thermometer from the
greenhouse where it was keeping an orchid warm, and proceeded to boil it in the
saucepan. In the middle of the operation Mrs. Danks returned, complete with
lobster. I explained what I was doing. Her eyebrows went up so high and so
suddenly that they nearly knocked her bonnet off.

"Did you take that egg from
the larder?" she inquired, rather tartly. "Because if you did, I can
tell you why it's hard boiled. It's the egg for the lobster marseillaise. I hard-boiled
it. myself before I went out."